Newsmaker | Prajwal Revanna: In the family feud Deve Gowda, an agent provocateur | Political impulse news

While the JD(S) is now trying to survive the resulting damage hundreds of videos in which he allegedly abuses many women, Prajwal himself is said to be in Germany – he had left for the Hassan Lok Sabha seat from where he is contesting again just a day after the elections were over, and days before the allegations emerged.

Although rebelliousness and outspokenness are certainly not characteristics that a politician wants to have, the 33-year-old Prajwal has picked out plenty of tricks of the trade. In this he is said to have had the guiding hand of his mother Bhavani Revanna, who comes from a political family of Krishnaranagar and is, by all accounts, the main driving force behind the ambitions of this side of the Deve Gowda family tree.

An engineering graduate, son of Deve Gowda’s elder son HD Revanna, Prajwal studied M.Tech in Australia. But just before the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, he came home and plunged straight into politics. Just 24 at the time, he was soon a prominent presence alongside Deve Gowda in the old Mysuru region, a JD(S) bastion, where he mingled with people with ease.

The rival branch of the family tree, led by HD Revanna’s younger brother and former CM HD Kumaraswamy, did not miss the signals. And a rivalry emerged that continued to haunt the JD(S).

Once the damaging allegations against Prajwal emerged, Kumaraswamy distanced himself from them, saying that his father Deve Gowda and he “have always respected women”.

On Tuesday, the Kumaraswamy-led JD(S) announced Prajwal’s suspension until an SIT constituted by the state Congress government submits its report.

A former JD(S) employee regrets “the feeling of insecurity within the family”. “Kumaraswamy wants his son Nikhil to be the political heir to the Deve Gowda name and Bhavani wants her son Prajwal. HD Revanna has little say in these matters, with every move closely watched by both parties.”

Bhavani himself was keen on a ticket at one point and made several attempts for the Krishnarajanagar seat in 2013. However, Deve Gowda and Kumaraswamy were seen to have blocked it.

But it was the denial of a ticket to Prajwal in the 2018 Assembly elections that took the power struggle within the family to another level.

Then came 2019. After Nikhil Kumaraswamy got the Lok Sabha ticket from Mandya, a family ward, pressure mounted on Deve Gowda to accommodate Prajwal too.

Ultimately, torn between the demands of his sons’ families, Deve Gowda gave up his own stronghold of Hassan for Prajwal.

While announcing Prajwal as Hassan’s candidate, Deve Gowda, like his grandson, made a tearful emotional statement that Hassan would choose the youngster. “And if Deve Gowda says it, more than half of the voters in Hassan will adhere to it,” says a JD(S) worker.

And they did, with debutant Prajwal getting 53% votes in the elections where the JD(S) and Congress were allies, even surpassing the votes cast for Deve Gowda in 2014.

Meanwhile, the veteran leader and former Prime Minister himself lost from the Tumakuru Lok Sabha seat to the BJP’s GS Basavaraj, while Nikhil was defeated in Mandya.

In the battle for supremacy between Revanna and Kumaraswamy, that defeat was painful – and there were allegations that the other side was involved in Nikhil’s loss.

During his only tenure as an MP, says a former JD(S) worker, Prajwal was a disappointment as he failed to make much of an impact in the House of Representatives and remained inaccessible to people from the constituency. “In the last five years, Prajwal has never held a press meet. He never shared the questions he asked in Parliament about Hassan. To this day, his father Revanna manages the affairs in the seat,” says the party worker.

This time, even before the announcement of the BJP and JD(S) alliance, Deve Gowda had declared Prajwal as Hassan’s candidate. Neither the BJP nor Kumaraswamy were apparently too happy.

A JD(S) leader from Hassan says that while it seems like the end of the road for Prajwal, “you never know”. “The Deve Gowda family can do impossible things in Hassan politics.”